The maths of the flying is a little puzzling to me.

Back of the fag pack, let’s say it is light for an electric car and weights 1000kg. I’ll also go on a limb and guess the air flow is actually subsonic - 200m/s would make it 0.6 Ma (still insanely fast!). Even then, that requires 50 kg of air every second. Or 40 m^3. Using everyone’s favorite metric, this empties an Olympic swimming pool in 1 minute. It also requires a MW of power. I mean… that’s a lot??? Though admittedly, only about as much as accelerating 0-60 in 1 sec (50% of that in fact). So the flying would draw as much power as accelerating at full throttle.

Power requirements would go down a lot with slower exhaust speed, but then you need to shift more fluid. 40 m^3 already seems like a lot to me.

I get it’s a neat little demo and they have to get SpaceX into the picture somehow, but still I don’t understand how it’s supposed to add up. Also, what do I know - just a humble physicist.

I wouldn't trust promo videos.

For Eg, we have self driving trucks. Nikola admits prototype was rolling downhill in promotional video: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/09/nikola-admits-prototype...

Tesla’s History of Faking Demonstration Videos: https://dawnproject.com/teslas-history-of-faking-demonstrati...

This is probably just to hype up the stock. The stock is down 5% (5 days), up 1% (1 month), down ~7% (6 months), down ~20% YTD, down ~16% (1 year). It has a PE of 336 and dwindling YOY sales. Tesla’s U.S. vehicle sales fell approximately 14% to 20% year-over-year through the first three quarters of 2026. Rest of the world, Tesla is not competitive and will probably go down rapidly soon.

Reading https://www.tesla.com/roadster, it seems like both variants only use cold gas thrusters, and the difference is that the "normal" (lol) one only has them pointed rearwards while the flying one has them pointed in all different directions as well.

> kinda wild they devoted this much effort to an economically completely infeasible model.

Watch Ford v Ferrari for an idea of what auto companies are willing to invest for bragging rights.

I thought somewhere in the video they said that it is just regular compressed air that is held in a tank, and that the car itself has a compressor and regenerates the compressed air over time. Obviously to stabilize that amount of weight the gas has to be ejected at such a high rate it is practically frozen at the nozzle outlet, but it is still just regular air.

It's not about sales numbers, it's about putting rockets in cars, so that SpaceX can acquire Tesla and give Musk supervoting shares

> and one with real combustion rocket engines

The site states it's cold-gas thrusters for both models: "Features a multi-mode suction system paired with cold-gas thrusters positioned around the perimeter of the vehicle that support forward and upward acceleration as well as lateral rotational movement."

The demo car they showed most likely has no batteries or even a metal frame. They basically built a car shaped drone powered by compressed air.

Example RC toy car that drives on the ceiling: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uR_mNcRlNsA

It's cool as fuck but calling it flying is misleading. It jumps and can maneuver in space.

They save on advertising to spend on mind-blowing demos.

> Wild that they devoted so much effort to an economically completely infeasible model.

Can't help but think of the not-a-flamethrower

(friend bought one for $500, now they seem to be worth $1500-$2000)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boring_Company#Merchandise

It's very economically feasible if it pumps up the stock price

> devoted so much effort to an economically completely infeasible mode

Just like economically infeasible Twitter, it has tremendous PR value. There is a huge economy revolving around people annoying other people just for a glimpse of their attention. This captures the attention and pleases people. Other car companies should start getting creative too.

> and one with real combustion rocket engines, the latter was in the video and is "invite only".

I don't think they'll sell these, at all in the future. No way they'll hound out actual rocket engines to en users. Too much IP in there.

I suspect it "actually flies" much the same way the cybertruck is bullet proof and has an ultra hard stainless steel exoskeleton, in that it doesn't. This seems like smoke and mirrors conman shit pumped up to 11.

> Wild that they devoted so much effort to an economically completely infeasible model.

Teslas evaluation is based on hype. This is as hype as it gets for a car. To me it looks like they were in need for "the coolest thing". To me, this has the smell of desperation implying the beginning of the end of their high evaluation.

Plenty of concept hypercars barely scrape 100 sales, the point is largley marketing in most cases

to be fair we don’t actually know yet that this is a high performance car. We only saw it drive a few mph without rocket assistance

> .... into a high performance car

If that is what they have done. That may just be a large drone looking like a car.

The website lists three modes, which all have the fan but differ in thrusters. The variants are: no thrusters (thus no COPV), acceleration-only thrusters, and flying thrusters. The flying one has the disclaimer "Note: Not approved for public road use." OTOH the acceleration-only thrusters may be street legal. However, I expect that the COPV will be kept empty (thus not dangerous) unless you select a special "launch mode".

Hopefully there will also be a warning siren while it is pressurized. "Dangerous enough to need a warning siren" seems like a plus for the target market, honestly.

[flagged]

[flagged]

>Wild that they devoted so much effort to an economically completely infeasible model. I wonder if the combustion version will even break 3 figures sales.

it's wild to me after all of the on-stage lying that we're even considering what the future economics of the rocket-powered-road-car are going to be.

it's wild to me that he has yet to deliver on the self-driving stuff, but has decided to progress into rocket-powered circus vehicles.

it's wild to me that he's getting credit for a fan car, after 50+ years of on-track existence and the recent production of the McMurty.

I'm curious to see how it all pans out, and whether or not he has enough Washington connections to get a fan-powered rocket car onto the streets, and I am curious to see the first LA block-shutdown street race accident involving an intentionally aerial vehicle.

Historically fan cars haven't been allowed on the streets because they 1) destroy asphalt and 2) throw chunks of destroyed asphalt into traffic.

I'm not entirely sure how thrusters that can lift a 3k+ lbs sports car off the road jibe with preserving the roads for others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...

> what glued panels fall off

The Lotus Elise was famously glued together instead of welds. The original Roadster also had the same innards.

This is clearly not a car for someone who wants to go from A to B, but a lot of Tesla components gets binned together for the next iteration of the cheaper car because they always order too many of them.

Oddly enough this makes their cheaper cars more reliable than the expensive ones (think about the Audis right when Ferdinand Piech took over Lamborgini).

This type of vehicle isn't intended to drive at speed, at least not very far. It's targeted at collectors who will park it in a garage with their other supercars. It's a status symbol with wheels, not transportation or even a toy for track days. (And I don't mean that as a criticism, there's nothing wrong with wealthy people buying collectibles.)

That was my first thought, Cybertruck: The Car. But then it drove up a wall and stopped on the ceiling and flew down. That was awesome. I'm sure it will be a nightmare to own.

Everyone is talking about the Cybertruck, but both the 3 and the Y have plenty of engineering problems as well. I believe both cars are listed as below-average reliability by CR.

Worse, there are no 3rd parties producing cheaper suspension parts, so your old Model 3 is going to have to spend 2000-3000$ on an yearly basis until you get sick of fixing the suspension. Tesla claims to have fixed the issue on newer models (and apparently they did a lot of work on the suspension), but they don't really take responsibility for their old cars so I doubt they will take responsibility when their design causes problems for you.

I do enjoy driving my 2019 SR+ Model 3, but I hate when people do the whole "Well on first principles, EVs have less parts so they are more reliable..." thing. My Toyota Sienna has been far more reliable than the Model 3, despite having many, many more parts.

> glued panels fall off at speed

Given some of the tauted 'features' of this thing, I'd be more concerned about it blowing up in my driveway.

I think the front view reminds me of the old lamborghini countach.

https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Lamborgh...

at least the CyberTruck shipped.

9 years since the announcement of Roadster v2, people who paid 50k deposits are still waiting.

Time to up the promises, and ask for more $50k deposits for v3!

I just wanted to get one for $1mln I have laying somwhere, but now I'll wait for more reviews. Thanks for the tip.

Looks good? The previous version looked incredible. This looks like the Delorean and the Cybertruck had an unwanted child.

I liked the rounded one lots better:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/NextGenT...

(just personal preference)

Looks like a Fiero

[flagged]

Cool!!! Whoever thinks this is *not cool* please, leave your cool card at the door

The flying-on-RCS-in-gravity reminds me of those old videos of exoatmospheric kill vehicle tests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnofCyaWhI0

Patently absurd, of course, but amazing too.

This is something straight out of Rocket League. Completely impractical, but awesome at the same time.

What is the practical use case of this? https://x.com/JehovaTrades/status/2110906028971938252

I'll admit, that was pretty cool

Fast forward to 11:15 to see the tricks.

Some smart cookies put up a scam video topping Google searches for the announcement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5lmBq00utE

AI Elon pressure selling "act decisively, double your money" by transferring crypto to some wallet and getting 2x back - yeah, right

(PS Google shut it down)

This is incredible engineering and deserves nothing but applause.

The corpses that this thing generates will be astonishing.

The rocket version is the real life bat-mobile to me. Impressive.

> every usable void in the car is packed with carbon-fiber overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs) to store compressed gas

Hahah, the failure modes are going to be exciting.

Yes, let's combine Twitter, an AI company, and a space company with a solar company, car company, battery company, and robotics company, so that we can have one huge valuation that can't be possibly delivered upon and losses will be absorbed for a short period. What could go wrong?

This would be a horrible deal for Tesla investors.

Long-term investors would lose about 40% of their investment to subsidize the inflated valuation of X (bought by xAI), the inflated valuation of xAI (bought by SpaceX), and SpaceX (whose valuation is based on the assumption that demand for inference is effectively unlimited, and that everyone will prefer hardware in space over Earth).

The valuation of both companies was inflated prior to acquisition, and Tesla shareholders will be asked to dilute their investment by absorbing that cumulative inflation.

Not even to mention that Musk would have exclusive control over the entire conglomerate, with not even the pretense of a Board to check his power.

When even Steven Mark Ryan is like "let's pump the breaks a little bit," you know it's bad.

[flagged]

[flagged]

> Car looks half decent too

To me it looks like a mashup of a Ferrari and a Cybertruck. That's not a good thing.

It's a cool demonstration, I'll give them that. From what I've seen online, people don't even seem to consider whether or not they would actually want this, just because the novelty of it. I'd even ignore that and call it good marketing, if that's what they would actually try to sell here - but you need some kind of special invitation access to even get those, while they use this demonstration to boost the pre-orders for a car without the features everyone is talking about (or at least trying to, we'll see how many will actually go for it).

Lots of words to say they built something useless to impress manchildren and investors, get ready for yet another "fell for it again" medal

I'm reminded of that time that guy made the Statue of Liberty disappear.

> I’m confused how this has (or will pass) regulatory approval for road use.

It won't.

And this is also true of being able to go over 90 MPH, despite many sports/premium cars touting an ability to reach a top speed above 150 MPH. Some cars come with "Donut" or drift modes. Donuts and drifting are definitely not road legal actions. These, and many other capabilities of sports cars, are obviously for track use only. These Roadster gimmicks are no different.

I think others have used a skirt that needs to extend quite close to the ground to work, so uneven ground can cause sudden loss of suction. Maybe this is solvable somehow?

I'm more worried about the COPVs exploding in a crash, for the thruster version. Hopefully it will keep the tanks empty unless a special launch mode is enabled with a warning siren sounding as long as they're pressurized.

The T50 has a fan for down force: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Murray_Automotive_T.50

> I’m confused how this has (or will pass) regulatory approval for road use.

Corruption? Musk is already down a quarter of a billions in donations to the GOP for these incoming elections.

what about like a countless random debris on the road? wouldn't that get sucked up and damage the fan?

Probably allowed outside of California.

The suction system is interesting. It's possible for it to work on the street but incredibly dumb. The kind of gap you have to keep is millimeters off the ground and your typical streets in the real world have so much damage and inconsistency it's hard to imagine it working for anything but straight line acceleration on a newly paved road. This would be a suicide mission to drive this on Skyline with the expectation to get 2-3g in the bends.

The concerns about debris and so forth are somewhat valid but can be taken care of. Similar to dust collectors for woodworking - this will have a cyclone separator, mesh, and whatnot that will prevent the blades from getting wrecked by a rock. But wouldn't want to tail this thing. It'll be pelting your car.

It'll be another "car goes really fast in a straight line" feature which electric cars have always done well with. While it'd be cool to use the suction system to get incredible g forces in bends - it'll be too dangerous for public roads. You'd immediately fly off the road if you lost any suction and I don't know what public roads (especially in the Bay Area) you could run such a system reliably on.

Is that "flying" car a "real" car? As in full battery and standard weight or is it just a shell stripped down to the minimum to save weight.

Because it makes zero economic sense to make a car do that?

Vroomba!

Square-cube scaling being what it is, I think it'd be much more reasonable to use propellers (like quadcopters) than try to scale down COPV's to a Vroomba! size. That's actually an interesting product idea. A small flying vacuum cleaner could clean a variety of surfaces; not only floors.

(And you could even mount the charging station on the ceiling, so it doesn't take up floor space).

All the dust around it on the floor would end up airborne again.

Imagine walking up stair and suddenly a roomba launch itself at your face.

I wish all the Elon haters put as much effort into making their comments as humorous as yours. Well done.

It also blows.

I feel like it's also crazy irresponsible to sell this deathtrap to the public, since it's pretty much guaranteed buyers will joyride this on public roads.

- The cold-gas only version will shotgun debris into onlookers, and possibly yeet anyone behind it.

- Active suction is very cool until a rock punches through your intakes.

- Lithium batteries and pressurised tanks in the same package, yippee!

Thank god it'll take them years to manufacture this thing.

Well we could examine the history here, for instance when he bought Twitter that it would immediately collapse (now its more popular than ever and Bluesky is the one that's falling apart) and when the Cybertruck was announced there were lots of people saying it could never be made: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21602437

No kidding. Musk is SIX YEARS late on delivering the previous version of the roadster, which has been superseded by today's announcement, promising its delivery in a few years, and everyone is just lappin' it up.

Well I see no numbers saying how long it will fly. Perhaps it "hops", could easily see that happening with a burst of air below the car. (While standing still, accelerating the car upwards for 1 second with a burst of air)

I suppose at least we can say there is a working car that seems to be able to actually do the things as advertised, which is more than one could ever say for e.g. the Moller Skycar.

> The thing that they showed off isn't something that they could legally sell

The cybertruck is for sale and FSD is active in the US. The US lets automakers "self-certify" that they are safe. So although I don't think this thing should ever be sold, it may end of on US roads.

My big question is, would anyone want one? It's an interesting life size hotwheels car but who would want one other than to show at a monster truck rally. The original Tesla Roadster was a masterpiece compared to this new one. Talk about missing the mark by a mile...

Flying is obviously a gimmick, but when Elon said this will crush all track records he wasn’t kidding.

The base model has the suction fans which will make huge gains.

Next model up has rear thrusters for the acceleration, which will be more insane. It’s limited production.

Final model that can fly is invite only and will be a joke on the track, using those thrusters to go around corners way, way faster than normal.

I wish they had shown track laps and 1/4 mile times instead of the gimmick of flying.

McMurtry Spéirling is 900 kg with 1000hp and 100KW battery and 2000 kg suction fan.

Flying / rocket acceleration are special versions they can sell one offs capable of doing the stunt once per canister change.

I was #12 Tesla Roadster owner. I spoke across the country with my father. We drove from coast to coast in 2014 at a time when there was a lot of doubt. — I supported elons “mission” and now we know it’s a neo Nazi front of a company. This company and Elon has been a scam since he stole JB Straubel. How do I know? JB Straubel is my father.

That’s why it’s invite only.

What are you talking about re: the battery pack?

If you wanted another pretext to merge Tesla and SpaceX this would be a good way.

The existing tech fab plus this car maybe makes it harder to sue once the merger happens - but he will still be sued. “Look we’re making it rocket cars with AI of course we should be one company”

I mean is it ever actually being released? probably not.

Was it a an amazing demo? yes.

[dead]

[dead]

[flagged]

[flagged]

I think calling it a scam is a crazy thing to say. Tesla has never not (eventually) shipped a product they said they would .

Also yes you can legally sell it. Whether you can legally operate it is a different question.

I think it’s real, the “invite only” version could probably do the kickflip over the semis, but would probably completely exhaust the tanks and require special equipment to refill or take hours with an onboard pump. And the flip is certainly a scripted stunt, not something you’d actually be able to do live. The math doesn’t seem to be completely unreasonable as a one off demo

I wouldn't be surprised if the presented "invite-only" variant will mostly be aimed at Saudi investors, and they will get an invite if they invest a billion into the company.

This would even be a sensible choice for Tesla, because it will put that car in a garage far away from public scrutiny...

(thinking just about all the debris damage-potential of those thrusters here, not even any potential quality issues)

When I searched for Tesla on YouTube at the start of the event, the first live event returned was this, an AI generated Tesla presentation with Elon telling users to send bitcoin and he'll send you back double as a promotional event like an X Money thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5EDp2rEbFA. The QR code went to this site: https://roadster.tv. I reported it to YouTube.

China has had flying cars since 2023 so I don't see how this is a scam. The flying mechanism is unique for the Roadster so that's still to be seen how it would perform out in public.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZpQZSBTi7k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2c-B3y7yGQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU5viDOjWLw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSjXf7IUSDw

Gas expanding faster than the speed of sound is called a shockwave - and the Mach diamonds are essentially the expanding gas shockwave “bouncing” back and forth as it hits the atmosphere, forming a standing wave of high and low compression zones.

Can't help but think of the super-large size toilet paper pack getting sucked into the fans...

I thought so at first but then Musk mentioned the thrusters can recharge themselves with pumps in the car. So it will actually be something owners can use repeatedly without needing complicated refills from Tesla service.

Not that I'd ever spend that much money on a car or need this at all, but for people who buy luxury vehicles I can see it. Definitely something we've never had in car history.

What happens if there's a rock in the road and it gets sucked up?

We say McMurtry Spéirling this century :)

I suspect it's more because some rando could actually try to use it in public space. The invite only means they could send it to people who will give them good PR, are known not to be idiots, and can be invited to sign many responsibility disclaimers.

It’s way simpler than that, it’s just a collector car like a special edition Ferrari.

They have to sell one to say that it exists. It’s marketing.

Absolutely nobody who owns that vehicle will be “flying” it.

They first started taking deposits on the Roadster 9 years ago in 2017 with a 2020 production date. It’ll be shocking if they ever sell this car they showed today. If they do, it’ll be many years late, not fly, and cost twice what they are saying. Just like the CyberTruck.

The one that doesn’t fly is only a $45,000 loan

When presenting the world with a flying car, one doesn't need much extra charisma, the demo does it all. I think most people would be pretty excited (or full of themselves) knowing what they were about to show.

Tesla presentations (and Musk presentations generally) have always been weirdly awkward.

As an engineer who dislikes polished presentations of unimpressive things, it encourages me that it’s still possible to do a bad presentation about an amazing thing and (most) people don’t grumble too much.

> it felt unnatural and cringey.

No way?! Elon Musk? Unnatural and cringey?!

really weirdly awkward

Also true of being able to go over 90 MPH, despite many sports/premium cars touting an ability to reach a top speed above 150 MPH.

Some cars come with "Donut Mode" or drift modes. Donuts and drifting are definitely not road legal actions. These, and many other capabilities of sports cars, are obviously for track use only. These Roadster gimmicks are no different.

And it begins. I can't wait to hear all the ways people will poo poo this incredible tech tomorrow.

Imagine driving on highway and suddenly a Tesla car fall on your car and kill the entire family

So the CyberCab will drive on the ceiling of the Boring Company’s tunnel?

also parking.

Based on the statement that the suction fan generates 2g of downforce, and the telemetry showing the fan operating at 4,700 kg @ ~95% load, the Tesla Roadster weighs approximately 2,300 to 2,500 kg.

I think that's to do with the wake/vortices a helicopter creates. Apparently, the effect is so strong that it can affect lift in a fairly large area over a few minutes. There's a recent case where a light plane took off in the neighborhood of a heli that just landed, and it veers off course, and hits the heli.

I'm thinking the car from the Sega Genesis game "Outrun 2019" (and only a few years late!)

SpaceX uses convex optimizers, like CVX.

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-079-introduction-to-convex-opt...

It's ok they'll merge with space x and basically be part of the US military which means sales figures won't matter anymore

Misdirection only works if you cash in during the interval immediately after the misdirect before the subject can refocus.

Tesla Q3 sales will be the same tomorrow.

It doesn't surprise me that any particular companies sales are down at the moment, how does Tesla compare to other car manufacturers out of interest.

Tesla board meeting last week: Board: So guys, our sales are slumping. What do we do? Elon: I have this cool idea...

> Tesla Sales Slump in Third Quarter

This isn't special though. 2023 was their best year and sales have been slowly declining since then. The share price has mostly been climbing since 2023. But soon they'll have a huge driverless fleet and robots or something.

Wasn’t stable. The straight jump they did was more like a mini rocket launch over some parked cars.

You’d want something that smoothly hovers rather than a launch then catch with boosters.

In the kickflip video it launches straight up and then proceeds to do a flip mid jump. The straight takeoff looks pretty solid to me.

It has a steering yoke. F1 cars also have a steering yoke. Are F1 cars not fun and engaging to drive?

It also has steer-by-wire which makes the steering yoke practical as they can tweak the steering ratio to prevent the need to go hand-over-hand. As they did for the Cybertruck.

there are approximately 450 in existence.. (ever made) Lets assume this car costs 1M each. (i bet its less) so if they sold 450 of these they'd make less than 500 million.

If they ever deliver a single unit that's a low enough bar to make it completely economically infeesable.

if they somehow managed to sell a couple of thousand... it might become profitable.

this has to be just a fantastic bit of marketing to jazz up their share price.

also.. I'd love to see a blooper roll of making it do these things...

> and other people

That's the bit where we diverge.

$100M to boost Tesla shares by billions of $, how generous...

Hundreds of thousands of dead Africans may not be so happy he exists.

No they haven't? It can hop at best, in a demo unit, designed specifically for that demo.

No. Respect is earned.

in theory it could avoid car crashes in practice the dudes that buy these cars will probably cause more crashes;)

Rockstar better get to work adding this car to the game.

No, they're cold gas thrusters. The car has an air compressor, a composite overwrapped pressure vessel (COPV) and 10 nozzles.

What kind of car doesn't have round wheels? This comment section must be the craziest I have seen so far on HN:

Great, now how about putting some of those amazing engineering brain cells into solving the impending water crisis.

Very cool stuff but all the "extra-terrestrial" stuff is complete bunk. This thing wouldn't survive Max-Q, let alone any kind of landing that isn't on a clean slab of concrete. It's a cool rich person toy, no other notes.

What is this wonderful "autonomous delivery vehicle" capable of delivering?

Also, assuming the delivery vehicle is destroyed at the end of each "delivery", what will it cost?

https://x.com/itskyleconner/status/2110901867823718434

Invite-only variant can jump, not fly. Other two variants can't jump.

Even if it does, these features aren't useful and can't be used in any realistic scenario. At best they're just party tricks.

1. If you start flying and land on someone or something, that's a problem. 2. My strong bet is what they demonstrated is as far as the thing can fly, which is definitely cool as a party trick, but that's it.

These cars are obviously chock full of machine-learning algorithms to be able to control themselves in the air in that way. I'd much rather see that ML muscle used for something that actually benefitted someone.

Amazing such instant expertise.

Watch the video - the car jumps into the air. Not exactly flight or what we’d consider a flying car, but it’s careering through the air off the ground.

This isn't even the first car to demo holding and driving upside down using a ground effect fan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6LYcgaQ46c

It's supposed to be funny. Or it's not? Really not sure.

There is another car [1] with a fan to improve downforce.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Murray_Automotive_T.50

> Bullshit, no it can't

I mean, this isn't crazy. In fact, it's already been done. Ever heard of McMurtry? (https://mcmurtry.com/). They're notorious for exactly this - using fans to provide extreme downforce (urr... upforce if you're hanging upside down?).

> In flight?

Did you see the stunt where it literally flew over vehicles? I mean, maybe it's a bit closer to a controlled super-leap like the original Superman, but... yeah, my personal reaction to that was more "holy shit" than "well, that's not flying".

Watch the livestream

If you scroll down on the page, it shows that the "rocket edition" is invite-only. Probably gonna sell it to a few friends in hopes that the 3-5 they make sell for millions down the road, so to speak.

>> Our multi-mode fan and ground sealing system acts as a downforce generator, pulling air out from beneath the vehicle. This provides enough suction to hold the vehicle upside down, even when stationary.

> Bullshit, no it can't.

A proof of concept already exists:

https://mcmurtry.com/upside-down-driving/

Yes, Rodney Mullen invented the kickflip (and damn near every other skate trick), but the reference here comes from a time when Tony Hawk would drive around and yell "do a kickflip" at skaters, if they did a kickflip he would sometimes give them a signed board or other things. Example video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob0dI05Xz8s - it became a thing for a little where people would yell "do a kickflip" at skaters they saw on the street.

It's apparently not fuel but pressurized air being refueled by the car itself.

> "Will it even be maintainable?"

Probably doesn't matter. I don't think it will be permitted on public roads anyway.

The presented variant is invite-only, so I guess it will be made to put in the garage of some (Saudi) investor who commits a billion dollar investment...

Very useful in England’s countryside, imagine all the puddles you can jump over! Eliminate these passing bays when cars can jump over each other in the narrow lanes!

[dead]

[flagged]

The car is not using momentum and centrifugal force to stay on the ramp. It has fans providing tons of downforce - so much downforce that it's able to stick to the road nearly completely inverted

It's a tech demo marketing presentation with a jumping car in it, not a flying one. It does look pretty cool though. Let's first wait and see if/when this will even be available and not just a marketing stunt.

I don't think people want to buy it - we just think its cool that its possible.

You should try having fun and enjoying things once in a while...

I’m incredibly surprised as to how fast people are forgetting who the CEO and largest shareholder of Tesla is.

Whatever breakthrough they’re making, is it worth funding the dismantling of democracy?

The technology is jaw-dropping, the engineering staggering, and this thread -- it's just embarrassing. I've been on HN since the beginning and I don't even recognize it anymore.

It was fine? I'd rather this than hyper rehearsed CGI human Apple launch video. At least its just real people talking like humans.

I can’t do a tech demo of a simple software feature on zoom without at least one thing messing up. They launched a car off a ramp live and were honest from the beginning of the stream it might not work.

The last decade of social media has shown that humans care more about authenticity than perfection in presentations.

Leave Volkswagen out of this. Day belongs to Tesla.

Not just you.

I never thought I would say this, but.. have you been like.. born 70 or something?

Bro the car literally jumped over a semi like its the TF2 soldier. Nothingburger???

Tesla has been doing this for a while, having all their promo shots at night etc. The terafab announcement stuff has an especially dystopian vibe

I mean, he also did a straight-up Nazi salute. We already know the guy is a fascist.

Super

The Robotaxi just started rolling out beyond Austin a few months ago. You think they threw together a flying car on a whim in a matter of weeks?

Don't worry, the first time they drive through a city the fans will suck up some trash and ruin the motors

Yea, i was going to reserve one of these sub 1 sec 0-60 vehicles with rocket motors and suction fans, but then I didnt because of the ergonomics of the door handle design.

If you watched the video, which you didn't, you'd know it appears to have a traditional door latch with recessed handles.